Experiential Learning
Experiential Learning
While every day at Seven Hills is filled with hands-on lessons, Fridays are dedicated to immersing students in interdisciplinary, experiential learning. We start every Friday with Team Teaching and end it with Exploratories. Every other week in the fall and spring, these "Experiential Fridays" become River Days where we spend the entire day learning on the James River.
Exploratories
As an essential part of our Experiential Fridays, we give our students the opportunity to explore their diverse interests through specialized, small-group classes. It’s up to the student to decide if he wants to write his own zombie apocolypse screenplay, plant heirloom tomatoes in the Phoenix Garden, or run stock market simulations. Every year we offer upwards of 50 Exploratories.
Exploratories Examples
We’ll look at humor in a variety of different mediums, and discuss what elements, strategies, and principles are commonly used to make us laugh. Students will put these methods to good use by producing a final funny project. A joke book, top ten list, parody, script, or short story are just some of the possibilities.
Bring your ideas into a dimension! Students will experiment with Tinkercad, a web-based 3D modeling app, to create their own 3D objects. After learning how the printer works and how to safely operate it, students will then be tasked with designing and printing three objects: a to-scale model of a larger object, a practical and useful object, and a free choice object.
Japanese comics and animation are popular all over the world; find out why that is in this exploratory. We’ll look at the influences and origins of these art forms, including traditional Japanese arts like puppet theater, we’ll talk about luminaries of the industry like Moto Hagio and Osamu Tezuka, and we’ll explore trends, themes, and messages present in these works.
We’ll take a linguistic, culinary, musical, and architectural peek at what makes New Orleans tick. What does the Holy Trinity mean on the Gulf Coast? Why do they eat cakes with toy babies in them? What’s a second line, and where can I find one? Amaze your friends by correctly pronouncing “Tchoupitoulas,” “Lagniappe,” and by knowing what the expression “Where Y’at?” really means. We’ll also examine the myriad environmental challenges the Crescent City faces as the Gulf Coast confronts the impacts of climate change.
We will explore the power of fire, and how humans learned to control it, and then move on to different ways of making and tending to a small fire. Techniques will include flint and steel, friction, as well as a few firestarter tricks.
Work as a crew to create a short film. All the equipment, technology, and special effects that we can handle will be included as students write, direct, shoot, perform, and edit their film.
Team Teaching
Team Teaching is where our signature hands-on, experiential approach is combined with interdisciplinary practice to create the optimal classroom experience. Small groups of teachers bring their different areas of expertise together to develop courses around topics that you won’t see in other middle schools. These thematically-centered courses are a unique opportunity to examine challenging content through the lens of several academic disciplines. Through this approach, the boys are able to form connections for a more complete and nuanced grasp of the subject matter, while practicing critical thinking and gaining new skills.
Team Teaching was born in 2015 out of the desire of our dedicated faculty to work more closely with each other while better reaching the boys in creative and collaborative ways. Each of the Team Teaching courses is created by the faculty to be taught four times over the course of the school year to each grade level. Teachers are able to vary exercises, assignments, and discussions depending on the grade level. Three to four teachers from different disciplines team together in order to create and teach each course.
As one of our veteran teachers put it, “This is the most alive and engaged I have felt in the classroom in a long time. The energy from the boys and other faculty is palpable.”
This Year's Team Teaching Topics
This is a first of its kind team teaching topic full of practical applications and skills. As a member of "the crew," students will get to pick projects on campus that better our community. The list and possibilities are endless! We know we have talented students and we'll see how they can rock some of those special skills during our course!
Students will learn about documentary filmmaking and then film and edit a portion of a documentary film about a day in the life of middle school boys. A goal for the end product is to highlight the growth and development of boys as they go from Bridge to Eighth Grade.
Students in the "Great Speeches" team teaching class will hear and analyze memorable speeches, discuss what might make a speech "great", and write and perform their own.
The Ninja Warrior team teaching explores the athletic activity's origins and the more modern adaptations in the west while giving the boys a chance to jump in and give some of the moves in the source material a try. From coming up with fun ninja warrior personas, to designing their own obstacle courses using on-hand materials on campus, to exploring locations outside of campus to practice their acrobatic skills, this team teaching has everything from creativity to action.
